Bjork, Drawing Restraint 9

DR9 is the latest filmed artwork by the multimedia enfant terrible Matthew Barney, whose romantic relationship with Björk has spawned a joint creative effort. This intense soundtrack sees Björk pick up the Japanese threads of Barney's film, writing music for an instrument called the sho and incorporating Noh theatre in the vocals for 'Holographic Entrypoint'. As challenging a work as any Björk has produced, DR9 is not easy listening. Set on a Japanese whaling ship, Björk's soundtrack is a murky mood piece featuring icy string sprays, sonar blips, and Björk's distressed, often whale-like vocals. The nearest thing to a conventional song is opener 'Gratitude', in which Will Oldham sings the words of a letter written to General MacArthur imploring him to allow whaling to resume off Japan after the war.

Crazy Frog Crazy Hits (Gusto) £10.99

Crazy Frog's cover of 'Axel F' is the second biggest selling single of the year so far after Tony Christie; it has kept both Coldplay and U2 (the old Coldplay), off the Number One spot. Any sane person would interpret those 'brrrring bing bing bing' noises as the barbarians riding videogame motorbikes at the gates. But as a dedicated professional, I feel duty-bound to alert Observer readers to the imminence of an even more persistent Crazy Frog tune in 'Popcorn', which features the Crazy Frog making chicken noises and is, artistically, not a patch on 'Axel F'. The rest of the album includes wet amphibian takes on rave anthems 'Pump Up The Jam' and Felix's 'Don't You Want Me?'. Perhaps more significant is the unsubstantiated internet speculation that the Crazy Frog ringtone adverts have disappeared off the TV because of ad industry pressure, since everyone switched over every time they came on.

Editors The Back Room (Kitchen-ware) £10.99

Urgency, half-light and barbed hooks - New York's Interpol may have got the formula nailed down first, but our own Birmingham-based harbingers of stern pop, Editors, do it better. Their debut album simultaneously satisfies the jerky dancer and the tortured English student in all of us like few bands since Joy Division. On these 11 artistically cohesive - but never samey - songs, singer Tom Smith has the knack of sounding as though the weight of the world rests exclusively on his bony shoulders. Required listening for 2005, The Back Room is up there with Bloc Party's standard-setting Silent Alarm.

Juliet Random Order (Virgin) £11.99

Philadelphian chanteuse Juliet was a model; so her debut album ought to be full of the sort of stick-thin material that usually accompanies the transition from clotheshorse to pop vamp. But there is more going on on Random Order. The hired tunesmith here is Stuart Price (aka Jacques Lu Cont), supplying rubbery digitals and rock-ish workouts. Juliet herself brings along a childhood of damage at the hands of her parent's religious cult. Like that other screwed-up Philadelphian, Pink, she has turned her trouble into credible dance-pop. Her frequent goth tinges ('Ride the Pain') recall Garbage, but mostly, she's aiming for Madonna-style club serendipity. She doesn't always get there, mind, (neither does Madonna these days) but Random Order remains an intriguing debut.

Lee Ryan Lee Ryan(Brightside) £12.99

Any dimwitted young star can get done for drink driving, or get into grief with a paparazzo. And Lee Ryan, formerly of Blue, has. But it takes this daftest of pop muppets to indignantly point out the plight of dying whales in the aftermath of 11 September, 2001. Sadly, Ryan's debut solo album isn't as loose a cannon as the ex-boy bander. It's hard to imagine 'Army Of Lovers' not selling, so massive was Ryan's Blue fame. But really, this is a record full of bloodless pap, safe and unimaginative. Tellingly, young Lee was held to be the one with 'the talent' in Blue, and these songs are rather more Gary Barlow than Robbie Williams, with none of the vim of a genuine reinvention.

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Various Fabriclive 23: Death in Vegas (Fabric) £13.99

Would-be Oasis producers get back to electronics on this fluid virtual DJ set.